Three sect leaders sentenced for inciting incest

Three Taiwanese have been sentenced by a local court for posing as religious masters and forcing a man to have sex with his three daughters, a newspaper said on Saturday.

The trio - Chang Yao-ming, Chen Ming-tsun and Hsu Su-chun (a woman) - set up a sect several years ago in Pingtung County in south Taiwan, the Liberty Times said.

Calling their sect the "Save the World and True Life Religion", they posed as religious masters and claimed they had the power to cure illnesses.

In 2005, a local man sought help for his sick wife at the temple run by the trio, the paper said.

The fake religious masters told the 48-year-old man that his wife was dying and the only way to save her was for him to have sex with his three teenage daughters. The daughters were told that they must have sex with Chang, too. The defendants then allegedly intimidated the three daughters into submitting to the sex in order to save their mother's life.

From 2005-08, the three daughters had sex with their father and Chang many times, with Chen and Hsu watching and fondling the girls, the paper said.

The paper did not say how the fraud was exposed, but said the Pingtung District Court sentenced Chang, Chen and Hsu to prison terms ranging from eight to 18 years on convictions for fraud and sex crimes.